Nice one, Sami. To take a tangent off something you said about being uncomfortable with mystery, there’s a deep impulse here. It could be thought as synonymous with a desire to control. On what I think is one of the best audio essays on this topic I’ve heard, I commend this to you by my friend, Kenneth Crowther: https://open.spotify.com/show/73I3mljWyimGX1Q5K3vj8u
Another thing I find sustainability people awfully quiet about are the resources needed to build the renewable power generation infrastructure. It'd be fine to acknowledge it - there are no free lunches after all. Pretending it doesn't exist just seems silly.
Yes there are always trade offs in sustainability and we don’t do anyone any favours by glossing over this. It’s not all win-win. We need to be honest about the fact that delivering renewable power will involve a significant scale up of some types of mining and that comes with environmental costs.
It's a difficult thing to come to grips with, given literally everything we do - or don't do - have consequences, some of which we might not like to acknowledge. It'd be nice to have the perfect solution, but humans and perfect never did get along ;)
Nice one @Sami, you articulate something I've been mulling on. I suspect our anxiety is about being stuck between our fantasy of past simplicity and our desire for mod-cons that make our life thus. It's also stems from a privileged position and our discomfort with that.
I was pondering the initial premise that people "want simple".
On the one hand, "simple" might be confused with "easy" or "convenient", in which case, those people might actually be in agreement with wanting more automation rather than less. However, they might not be aware of their needs/wants which may be underlined by their erroneous use of the English language: succinct expression of thought requires a comprehensive level of thought, awareness and analysis preceding the expression.
On the other hand, your use of the word "nostalgic" made me think about a different reason why people would want "simple" and "less automation". Romanticising the past is not an uncommon human trait and one that is not really connected to "more automation", yet, to "simplicity" to some degree.
As we grow up, our lives are _subjectively perceived_ as being more simple due to our inherent lack of appreciation of life's (mostly human-made) complexities and complications. This lack, caused by limited experience in our early years, is being slowly removed as we grow older and gain more experience until we reach our subjective comfort level of (human) life's complexity. At this point, willful ignorance combined for a longing for simplicity may set in, which (the simplicity) we are likely to connect to our youth when we were not yet overwhelmed with (human) "life" as a whole.
This effect is further emphasised by our brains' selective amnesia towards negative events - a coping mechanism to overcome such experiences in order to keep living and fighting for our survival.
Of course, this may make us "forgot" how awful the past really was, creating a romantic picture of a better life that never was.
Of course, everyone wants complexity as you have outlined in your article.
However, wanting it and being aware of it are different things.
The human mind does not embrace complexity, quite the opposite: it may easily become overwhelmed by it and, thus, reject it.
Yes, we are all children of the magenta: we just need to become aware - and comfortable(!) - with it.
Another thought: could the impulse to simplicity be construed not merely as a desire to rid one’s life of complexity, but instead as a desire for better ergonomics, for better and more convivial and human-scale ways to interface with that complexity. (Thinking of J. Licklider’s paper on man machine symbiosis here)
Yes, it absolutely could be - in the human scale, when we're talking about our personal lives. (however even good ergonomics is a complicated thing when you dive deep into it).
What my point was more aimed as was the more broad movement of anti-experts, anti-science, anti-modernity, the last of which I have some sympathy on, but few people railing against "the system" would really like it if the system was dismantled.
Nice one, Sami. To take a tangent off something you said about being uncomfortable with mystery, there’s a deep impulse here. It could be thought as synonymous with a desire to control. On what I think is one of the best audio essays on this topic I’ve heard, I commend this to you by my friend, Kenneth Crowther: https://open.spotify.com/show/73I3mljWyimGX1Q5K3vj8u
Pining for simplicity without actually acknowledging how shitty the past was is common to sustainability folks as well.
Another thing I find sustainability people awfully quiet about are the resources needed to build the renewable power generation infrastructure. It'd be fine to acknowledge it - there are no free lunches after all. Pretending it doesn't exist just seems silly.
Yes there are always trade offs in sustainability and we don’t do anyone any favours by glossing over this. It’s not all win-win. We need to be honest about the fact that delivering renewable power will involve a significant scale up of some types of mining and that comes with environmental costs.
It's a difficult thing to come to grips with, given literally everything we do - or don't do - have consequences, some of which we might not like to acknowledge. It'd be nice to have the perfect solution, but humans and perfect never did get along ;)
Nice one @Sami, you articulate something I've been mulling on. I suspect our anxiety is about being stuck between our fantasy of past simplicity and our desire for mod-cons that make our life thus. It's also stems from a privileged position and our discomfort with that.
I was pondering the initial premise that people "want simple".
On the one hand, "simple" might be confused with "easy" or "convenient", in which case, those people might actually be in agreement with wanting more automation rather than less. However, they might not be aware of their needs/wants which may be underlined by their erroneous use of the English language: succinct expression of thought requires a comprehensive level of thought, awareness and analysis preceding the expression.
On the other hand, your use of the word "nostalgic" made me think about a different reason why people would want "simple" and "less automation". Romanticising the past is not an uncommon human trait and one that is not really connected to "more automation", yet, to "simplicity" to some degree.
As we grow up, our lives are _subjectively perceived_ as being more simple due to our inherent lack of appreciation of life's (mostly human-made) complexities and complications. This lack, caused by limited experience in our early years, is being slowly removed as we grow older and gain more experience until we reach our subjective comfort level of (human) life's complexity. At this point, willful ignorance combined for a longing for simplicity may set in, which (the simplicity) we are likely to connect to our youth when we were not yet overwhelmed with (human) "life" as a whole.
This effect is further emphasised by our brains' selective amnesia towards negative events - a coping mechanism to overcome such experiences in order to keep living and fighting for our survival.
Of course, this may make us "forgot" how awful the past really was, creating a romantic picture of a better life that never was.
Of course, everyone wants complexity as you have outlined in your article.
However, wanting it and being aware of it are different things.
The human mind does not embrace complexity, quite the opposite: it may easily become overwhelmed by it and, thus, reject it.
Yes, we are all children of the magenta: we just need to become aware - and comfortable(!) - with it.
Another thought: could the impulse to simplicity be construed not merely as a desire to rid one’s life of complexity, but instead as a desire for better ergonomics, for better and more convivial and human-scale ways to interface with that complexity. (Thinking of J. Licklider’s paper on man machine symbiosis here)
Yes, it absolutely could be - in the human scale, when we're talking about our personal lives. (however even good ergonomics is a complicated thing when you dive deep into it).
What my point was more aimed as was the more broad movement of anti-experts, anti-science, anti-modernity, the last of which I have some sympathy on, but few people railing against "the system" would really like it if the system was dismantled.
Except for this guy: https://oneworld-publications.com/work/the-moneyless-man/